Ease of Use: Getting started was a little challenging, after finding the tab "Assign Lesson" I was able to start investigating the program. As with any other tool, use and practice will make it much more efficient and useful.

Type of Tool: Assessment and practice

Functionality: Students can practice skills as well as be assessed on skills

Audience: Students

Multimedia Learning Principles Supported:

Coherence (no extraneous noises or images), Signaling (feedback will bold the error for student to reevaluate and correct, adds hints if necessary to help student see error and fix it

How Would I Like to Use It: Using Quill as a pretest and a post-test will help me better see where my students are at the beginning and the end of a unit or skill. There is also opportunity for the student to practice skills taught in class. The lessons have immediate feedback which benefits the students and their learning.

Beginning a unit giving a pretest from Quill would help me make small groups of students to instruct. Ending a unit giving a post-test would give me data to determine who needs more assistance and who is ready to move forward. Using the practice lessons between the pre and post-test would give students a chance to practice and give me a chance to see how my students are thinking through their lessons.

Cost: Free Basic (unlimited with feature mode)

Pro $4.99/month or $59.88/yr

School $1,000/ year for entire school

Department $650/yr 20 teachers

Ease of use: Teachers can easily search for ready-to-go games or easily create their own, student user friendly, not easily differentiated for class game

Type of Tool: learning in a game show tool; Introduction, Review, Homework

Functional: (What does it do?)

Introduce or review concepts

Fast-paced games for the classroom or independent work

Has reports to see who students are progressing - View & analyze student performance data, reports for live games and assignments

Able to create review games, introductory lessons

Audience: Grades 4-12, students, most subjects

Multimedia Learning Principle: 

• Coherence

  Remove unnecessary information and ensure that words and visuals complement each other. 

• Modality

  People learn better from graphics and narration than from animation and on-screen text. 

• Personalization

  People learn better when words are in a conversational style. 

• Voice

  People learn better when the narration is spoken in a friendly human voice.

How I Would Use It In My Classroom:

I like this type of multimedia tool for introducing and reviewing concepts. I would create gimkits for the concepts we are studying giving the students an opportunity to learn and have fun. I read an article about how giving a game show type activity to students on new concepts, reviewing the questions and answers at the end, and then replaying the game helps reinforce learning for the students. I would try that concept out with this tool. It would also be a great way to review concepts before the big test. Using the reports option, I would be able to see my students' progress with various skills and concepts.

Cost: 3 tiers: Free, Pro Teacher $11.50/month, Schools/Districts Custom

Ease of Use: After a tutorial and some practice, Edpuzzle is easy to use and kind of fun

Type of Tool: Edpuzzle is an online tool that allows teachers to pull in personal and web-based videos, such as YouTube, to be cropped and used with other content. This can mean adding in voice overs, audio commentaries, extra resources, or even embedded assessment questions.

Functionality (What does it do?): Edpuzzle is an online tool that allows teachers to pull in personal and web-based videos, such as YouTube, to be cropped and used with other content. This can mean adding in voice overs, audio commentaries, extra resources, or even embedded assessment questions.

Audience: mostly teachers, but students can use the platform to create as well

Multimedia Learning Principles: 

Segmenting - Videos stop at certain points to help reinforce information/skill with student

Visual - video graphics vary from cartoons, handwriting, videos

Multimedia - graphics/pictures, words, voice

Coherence - material/information is clearly and logically presented

Highlighting - important details, information is brought to the attention of the learner

Modality - the videos are using both auditory and visual channels

 Voice - the voice is human or computer generated that sounds nearly human

Example of how I would use: 

Create an interactive quiz/review

Upload lessons for students who are learning from home

Use as sub plans

Remediation or Enrichment

Cost: 7-day free trial, Basic Plan Free, $8.99/month, $59.99/year

Ease of use: fairly simple, once you have been introduced to the program, it doesn’t take long before you can start writing and creating. 

Type of tool: story writing

Functionality (What does it do?): an online platform for writing and sharing stories

Audience: students 

Multimedia learning principle(s) supports: Storybird does not directly support any of Mayer’s Multimedia Principles.

Example of use: This would be a great tool for students to practice their writing skills. I would present a lesson on say narrative writing then the students would create their rough drafts to finally complete them in Storybird. Another use would be for peer review. Students could review and critique other students’ works to gain a different perspective.

Tool: SketchWow

Cost: $39/monthly or running a special currently for $49/lifetime

Ease of Use: Very user-friendly, able to use templates to create quickly, creating from scratch is simple

Type of Tool: Diagram, Flowchart, Process Map software

Functionality (What does it do?): It is a flowchart tool that helps users brainstorm and communicate ideas, lessons, and information

Audience: Teacher use, student engagement

Multimedia Learning Principles Supports: 

Coherence, Segmenting, Temporal and Spatial Contiguity, Signalling, Modality, Personalization

Example of use: 

Create quick tutorials for new skill

Review skills

Review materials prior to a unit test

Introduce new information in a fun way

Enrich student technology skills by having them create a SketchWow for review and use